Weekend In Pictures

We took some baked ziti and a pie over to the hub's cousin's to celebrate a belated birthday, and spent some time with the nieces :)

As soon as dinner was eaten, this little cutie asked her daddy if she could put her rainboots on so she could play on the swings with me. Who could say no to that face? :)

She turns 4 next week and I can't believe how grown up she's become!

Pretty dahlias growing in the garden.

The hubs playing football and pretending he wouldn't rather be reading a book hehe

Olivia, now a month old :)

Once a year I make a chocolate peanut butter pie for their dad's birthday because it's his favourite pie.

His sister brought an Oreo ice cream cake that was so flipping good.

The Hubs Needs A Filter

The hubs has this ridiculous wish that my eyesight fails one fine day, so that I have to wear black-rimmed glasses. So we're watching TV and this Asian chick is wearing black-rimmed glasses...

Hubs: "You need to wear glasses like that. Just bigger."
Me: "Bigger?"
Hubs: "Yeah you need those glasses but bigger."
Me: "Are you saying I have a big face?!?!"
Hubs: "Bigger glasses... To break up all that skin."

Then I flung myself on the floor and flailed around a bit. He joined me on the floor, laughing, thinking he's reaaaaally funny. Ass.

Look Who's Finally Home!

I finally got my car back! I was so happy to return the rental car (I almost flung the keys across the counter so I could be rid of it) and get my darling car back :)

Hi there my pretty :)

No sticky out bit!

It's been exactly four weeks since my accident. Yes, FOUR weeks. Is it just me, or is four weeks an amazingly ridiculous amount of time to have my car fixed? Two of those weeks were waiting for the idiot who hit me to provide her insurance information to the police. Another two weeks to get my car fixed.

Initially, dealing with the Allstate people wasn't too difficult. They sent me off for an appraisal of the damage and I sent my car in to the workshop the same day. I was supposed to have my car ready by this past Tuesday... then Wednesday... and finally Thursday.

Why the delay? Oh because AllState decided to do a random inspection of my car's repair, which delayed everything by a couple of days. I had to have AllState extend my car rental, at which time the rep got shitty with me, and then later told me that any more delays and the rental would come out of my pocket. They're the ones who caused the delay in the first place!!! Plus when the workshop people wrote in their report that AllState themselves caused the delay, they said they wished he hadn't written that. Good grief.

I'm pretty damn sick of dealing with insurance people, and very thankful it's finally behind me. The workshop people were nothing but wonderful, and they returned my car all tidied up and cleaned :) I think I pet my steering wheel when I got in it hehehe!

Blackouts Are The Suck

Yesterday we had yet another blackout. You can't give a girl electricity and then rip it away from her without warning. I was in the middle of preparing dinner so that came to a screeching halt. I couldn't go for a run on my treadmill and I sure as hell couldn't kill time sewing on my machine. 

The cats really didn't care... they have food and water, what do they want with electricity. Traitors. If Mummy has to suffer, everyone should suffer right along with her. 

I tried entertaining myself with scribbling in my journal and figuring out some measurements for quilts I had planned. Turns out I'm not good at entertaining myself without electricity. I finally decided to pull out my hexies to work on them, and two seconds in, the hubs came home with turkey subs.

I proposed that after dinner we hop in the car and run some errands to kill time at the shops. The hubs nodded so furiously I thought his head would fall off. We popped home after a couple of hours only to find our house still drenched in darkness. (Insert sad face here). So we took a 45-minute drive around the neighbouring towns and returned finally returned home at 10pm. I think I squealed in joy :)

Five hours without electricity is just wrong. The second it started raining heavily I knew the power was going to go. That's how ridiculous the power lines are around here. I started filling jugs with water and the power went. I'm beyond relieved that I wasn't on the treadmill when it happened!!

Happy Happy Birthday To My Bestest Girls!

Dearest Averil and Aurelia,

Happy birthday you two! You make a big sister proud, and I'm thankful to have you guys in my life. I wish you both the bestest birthday ever, and I'm so glad you're spending this birthday together on the same continent. Wish I were there too! I miss you every day, and I love you guys more than you'll ever know.

Love,
LBS*


* LBS = Little Big Sis. Cos I'm little. And the big sister. Yup, total rocket science when we came up with that one.

An Afternoon With The GO! Baby Cutter

I spent yesterday afternoon getting to know my AccuQuilt GO! Baby cutter. I actually read the manual. Okay, I read some of it. The important bit that told me how to place the die, fabric and cutting mat. Which was so simple I didn't really need to read the manual -- I just didn't want to do something wrong and ruin the cutter. Because I'm really good at breaking things. 

When I was asked if I'd like the chance to get my hands on the GO! Baby cutter, I immediately thought 'YES' because I hate cutting fabric. The less I have to do with the rotary cutter, the better, I say. But I still had to think about it because I wasn't sure if there were any dies I'd actually use. 

I took a look at the dies available on AccuQuilt, and I knew for sure I wanted the tumbler die because I'd always wanted to make one, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stand there and measure angles and cut them out myself. I also chose the half square triangle and diamond dies because again, I'm not fond of cutting things with angles. (Well, except for my 60 degree triangles because I have the rulers.)

So I sandwiched my fabric between the die and cutting mat, and placed it under the roller. And it wouldn't go through. I started to think to wonder if I was too dumb to own a cutter, and kept thinking about Amber saying how even her 5-year-old could work it! With a little effort, I managed to roll the die sandwich through, and after that initial hiccup, it was easy peasy.

I cut a stack of half square triangles in no time at all (there's only a few pictured because the stack is mostly on my design wall) with corners cut off and all. I know half square triangles are easy enough to make but I think this way opens you up to a few other options.

The only thing about using the cutter to cut fabric is that there's a bit more waste than you'd have if you cut with a ruler and rotary cutter. But what I did was measure the area the die covered and cut my fabric strips to minimise waste as much as I could, and that worked out well. Also, I'd suggest you keep a pair of scissors nearby because while the cutter does a good job, there are always a few random threads left intact.

So bottom line is that I'm enjoying the cutter. I like not having to stand over the cutting mat with rotary cutter in hand, measuring and slicing. And I really like how quickly I have my pieces so I can get to sewing quicker! :)

And yes, I'm making something Halloween-y! Stay tuned!!! In the meantime, you can go sign up and get 22 free patterns from AccuQuilt.

More Farmer's Wife Blocks

I finally got round to printing the templates for my Farmer's Wife blocks. Thanks to Michelle, it was quite pain-free! She turned me on to this PDF (found here) made by lizquilts, and thanks to both Michelle and Liz, I only had to print 15 pages and lessen the paper waste. I hate wasting paper, so I'm forever grateful!

1. Block 5 Bat Wing, 2. Block 15 Buzzard's Roost, 3. Block 6 Big Dipper, 4. Block 1 Attic Windows, 5. Block 14 Butterfly at the Crossroads, 6. Block 8 Bouquet

If you'd like a closer look, you can click on any of the links to see the individual blocks, or you can go to my Farmer's Wife Quilt-A-Long set.

I love my rulers, and templates are not my favourite thing to use. The teeny tiny bits are the worst... irritating to cut and sew. But I think my irritation was probably due mostly to the heatwave we had to endure over the last few days.

Anyhow, I love these blocks and I love how all my blocks look on my design wall. Still don't know if I'll make all 111 blocks. Some of them don't appeal to me, and some look too tedious to even contemplate. On the other hand, if I'm going to undertake something like this, why not make them all, right? Also, I'm not sure I like the idea of them on point for when I get round to sewing them together. Meh, plenty of time to think about that one too :)

Weekend In Pictures

Since we still had the rental car, we decided to take a little drive to Brattleboro, VT. We haven't been for a couple of years, but it's something like 80 miles away so you can't blame us! (I'm a city girl, so anything outside of 10 miles is excessive driving to me lol!) We threw some Jay-Z and Hot Chip in the CD player and off we went!

There's a fantastic CD and record store called Turn It Up there we love. (There's also one in Northampton, our second home.) The hubs found a copy of a To Rococo Rot album he's been searching for and couldn't believe his luck.

I took this photo of the hubs at Mocha Joe's... but mostly I was taking a photo of that lady. Why is she carrying a backpack AND a teeny tiny purse? Anyone? Anyone? And also, she was getting a box for half a slice of chocolate cake. If you ask me, the woman has no business ordering chocolate anything if she can't finish it at one sitting.

We got a slice of rhubarb strawberry pie because we have a soft spot for it. The first time the hubs visited me in Australia, we went on a trip to Margaret River, and had the absolute best rhubarb strawberry pie there. Seriously. All others taste like poo nuggets in comparison. Not that I've eaten poo nuggets...

Anyway, I think the weather's going to cool for a couple of days, so I'm really glad about that. And the little vegetable stand near our house finally opened this weekend, so I'm going to stalk it till they start selling peaches. The peach farm is right behind my house, and I'm always tempted to go yell at the trees to hurry the hell up. If you tried their peaches, you'd understand. Best. Peaches. EVER.

Men Probably Are From Mars

We were in the supermarket and I noticed my husband's shirt wasn't quite right...

Me: "Umm, honey... your shirt's inside-out."
Hubs: "Yup."
Me: "It's. Inside. Out."
Hubs: "I know."
Me: "Wait. You knew this and you stepped out in public anyway?"
Hubs: "Yup."
Me: "BUT YOUR SHIRT IS INSIDE-OUT."
Hubs: "Seems more like your problem than mine."
Me: ".............."

Later he tries to hug me while we're still shopping with his damn shirt still inside-out, and I just couldn't do it without wanting to stab him.

More Farmer's Wife Blocks... And A Redux

A few more blocks I made a couple days ago. I've almost exhausted the blocks that don't need templates, so wish me luck as I do battle with the printer!

1. Block 54 Kitchen Woodbox, 2. Block 48 Homeward Bound, 3. Block 73 Rainbow Flowers, 4. Block 61 Northern Lights, 5. Block 81 Snowball, 6. Block 70 Prairie Queen

If you'd like a closer look, you can click on any of the links to see the individual blocks, or you can go to my Farmer's Wife Quilt-A-Long set.

Also, I think I'm going to redo my Railroad block (top left corner). I LOVE the fabric and the contrast, but I think that dark pink fabric needs to be confined to making small appearances in blocks. It's one of my favourite blocks, but the dark pink just steals focus away from all the other blocks. Booooooo!

And I hope everyone who's affected by this loathsome heatwave is staying indoors and keeping cool :) The cats are insane, and still seeking out the sunny spots all over the house. Their current favourite is under the laundry racks in the kitchen. Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how to live in the freezer and avoid death... Unfortunately without success.

Got Pancakes?

We had a couple of friends pop by the other evening because they wanted to thank us for the quilt I'd made for the little boy they're expecting. Aww :) The husband loved it so much that he took it to work to show everyone hehe

Anyway, the wife told me her nesting phase has consisted of tonnes of baking, so I pulled out a few of my cookbooks I thought she'd be interested in, one of which was the Clinton St Baking Company cookbook.

And during all this, we left the telly on the Cooking Channel because that's usually what I watch (aside from the 'murder' channel). Lo and behold, I spot Neil Kleinberg of Clinton St Baking Company on the telly!! What are the odds?! He was making his famous pancakes, so we flipped to the recipe page and were laughing at the fact that we'd just been looking at the book and had the recipe in our hands. This went on for the entire length of the segment... quite a few minutes.

Then the hubs goes, "Oh my god honey! Could you get the recipe for those pancakes!?!" .

*FACE PALM*

The man functions on some sort of delayed reaction, I think. Or is seriously deaf. Cracked us all up. Although I told everyone not to leave because the second they leave I'll have to throttle him. Just kidding. Maybe :)

Oh, and I was later told that when they got home, the wife made a batch of chocolate chip pancakes. At midnight. Can't argue with a pregnant woman!

Old Friend, We Meet Again

I was watching TV last night, sewing my hexies together, and I happened to look up as this Shell ad played. I'd seen / heard it many, many times before, but I never actually paid attention to it.

That fellow 'Kim'? He's my friend Niki. I e-mailed him the second I saw the ad -- "Did I just see you on my TV?! In a Shell ad?!".

Niki and I met over a decade ago, studying journalism at university in Australia. We were kindred spirits right from the get-go, and even though we both moved away (he returned to Malaysia) and speak very sporadically, he's still very dear to me. We pick up our conversations via e-mail like we'd just seen each other yesterday :) And to this day he calls me his bwitch (It's a mash-up of bitch and witch... and supposedly affectionate...).

I'm so glad I looked up at the screen. It was nice to see my old friend again :)

Hexagon Project

I've been plugging along with my hexagons, and still not sick of hand sewing. Stranger things have happened, I suppose :)

I've managed to sew a huge chunk of the quilt top together, and it wasn't too bad because I kept telling myself not to think about how daunting a task it was. I'd sit and watch a DVD or shows off the DVR, and before I knew it, I'm more than halfway done.

I reckon my husband really loves this quilt top because whenever I'm not working on it, he asks why. He's never really bothered with any other quilt top before. The man has good taste, what can I say? Heehee!

Want Want Want

I'm so seriously in lust with this Coach Chelsea bag that it's gotten to the point of ridiculous. I can't tell you how many times I 'visit' it online and pet it with my eyes! I want it! Waaaaaaant! :(

Farmer's Wife Hard At 'Work'

Whoopsies. I made another nine blocks last night and today. I need to be stopped. (Please don't make me stop. I might cry.)

1. Block 41 Friendship Star, 2. Block 34 Flock, 3. Block 26 Cut Glass Dish, 4. Block 72 Railroad, 5. Block 11 Broken Dishes, 6. Block 71 Puss in the Corner, 7. Block 21 Contrary Wife, 8. Block 25 Cups & Saucers, 9. Block 20 Churn Dash

That last little guy (no. 9) is possibly my favourite so far. Then again I have a soft spot for Churn Dash quilts / blocks, so it's no surprise. And no.8 was a bit of a booboo... I accidentally reversed the two fabrics. Oh well.

If you'd like a closer look, you can click on any of the links to see the individual blocks, or you can go to my Farmer's Wife Quilt-A-Long set.

New Toy!

Look what the lovely people at AccuQuilt sent me! I'm hoping to crack it open sometime this week and play with my new toy :)

I Have No Willpower

I swear on all things holy that I tried my very, very best to shut down my urge to join in the Farmer's Wife Quilt-A-Long. But slowly, I gave in because I am a dork with absolutely no willpower. 

I bought the book and told myself I was just going to have a flick through, and start working on blocks when I was able to. HAH. That lasted all of two days. (Though that's pretty good by my standards.) 

So after I accepted my idiocy and picked out my colour theme (blues, pinks, yellows and creams), I went ahead and made a few blocks. And because I wasn't in the mood to fight with the printer (the laser printer HATES my laptop), I started with the blocks that didn't need templates.

Here are my first six:

Block 2: Autumn Tints

Block 4: Basket Weave

Block 9: Box

Block 10: Bowtie

Block 12: Broken Sugar Bowl

Block 16: Calico Puzzle

I think I'd been so taken with them because I've become more interested in traditional blocks lately. And these were so much fun to put together, especially since I rarely work with blocks so small. I don't know if I'll do all 111 blocks... I may, or I may stop when enough fun has been had :) 

At Snail's Pace

Remember the accident I was in two weeks ago? I chased after the accident report right after the 4th of July weekend since I'd been told it'd take two days. Pffft. Two days my ass. 

I called day after day after day to no avail. I left messages, I talked to as many people as I could. Finally the police officer himself called to say that the hold up was with the driver who hit me. She had to provide extra insurance information and had dropped it off with the wrong people. See, told you she's an idiot. 

So anyway, I finally got the report on Wednesday, by which time the lady at the reports office and I were on very friendly terms. I told her she wouldn't get any more bothersome calls from me, but she said I should feel free to call and say hi anytime lol! 

I contacted the idiot's insurance company, got the appraisal appointment for today and I'm very happy to report that my car is finally in the shop :) They'll still need to order parts etc, but like I told the guy at the body shop, as long as I have a rental car and my car comes back to me all fixed and pretty again, I can't complain. 

The funny bit about the rental car is that it tells me the temperature in Celcius! (I know it can be changed but it's staying put as long as I'm driving!) Finally, I actually know what the temperature is!! With Farenheit I'm always kind of just guessing the temperature hehe

It's odd driving a new car. There's SO many buttons with this car and it took me a while to figure out how the hell to move the side mirrors. Oh, and the rental car guy found the need to point out how to make the seats HIGHER. I gave him serious stink eye... Then thanked him.

Kitty Kindle Cover

Say that quick ten times!

I made a little Kindle cover for a friend who's gifting it to another friend of ours. She loves all things duckies (she's the one the duckie quilt was for) and kitties. So when my friend asked me to make the Kindle cover and showed me an example, I realised I had the fabric.

 

Kiiiiiiiiiitties!!! (Kind of upset that Ragdolls aren't one of the cats on there, but whatever.) 

The cover's just quilted in thin straight lines, which I thought was perfect for 'hiding' the side seam. 

For the lining, I used some dots on a pink background so it wasn't too matchy-match. I didn't want to use a button or velcro to keep the cover shut, so I put a little snap button on there instead. Easy (and less noisy) to open and shut. 

Also, I may or may not have sewn one side of it wrongly and had to cut it out and sew it back correctly. Heh.

My friend wants one for herself too, but she's had about three different ideas so I told her to think about it and let me know when she knows hehe 

The Truth Hurts

While we were watching a cooking show last night...

Hubs: "I think I'd be a really good cook."
Me: "Umm. There is no basis for that assumption."
Hubs: "Yes there is. My brilliance!"
Me: "There is also no basis for that assumption..."
Hubs: "HEY..."

:)

Summer Heat = Grumpy Aud

Summer heat makes me particularly irate. It's like PMS, 24/7. Fun times in the house, for sure. The hubs will attest to this. Ahem.

But over the weekend I had a couple things just irritate me and it wasn't even the summer heat!

ONE

Saturday morning, I woke up to go teach a class and as I was about to sit on the sofa to enjoy my morning coffee, the hubs starts shouting, "OMG IS SHE PISSING???". I turn to see my cat Isobel pissing on the damn sofa. LOVELY. 

I don't know why she did that, and I really hope there's not a repeat. The sofa cushion's just fine -- I washed the cover and there's a protective layer so the inner cushion wasn't affected at all. Phew. Isobel isn't getting cuddles for the foreseeable future, though.

TWO

We went to the bank to deposit my cheque, and as I walked away, I looked at my slip as I always do. I saw that the previous balance read $29. Umm, WHAT?!?!

We went back to the counter and demanded to know WTF just happened. The idiot teller tried to laugh it off saying she'd plugged in the account number of the customer she'd just spoken to on the phone from memory. Oh. Right. That's okay then. HAH!

If I weren't anal retentive and fond of checking slips and receipts, who knows if that mistake would've ever have been picked up. She could be in deep doodoo if I made a complaint but I know everyone needs to keep their jobs these days so I won't. I'll just never return to that branch again!

THREE

I finally caved and bought Alicia Paulson's Embroidery Companion. I excitedly sat down to flick through it last night.

Only to find that one of the pages is ripped :( I hope there's another copy in the store for me to swop!

FOUR
And finally, there's my flying geese. I'm not really irritated with this... just a little stuck and wishing I could finish it.

I think I like them in this formation (Geddit? Geese? Formation? Oh, I slay me.) but I'm not 100% certain I like it enough to sew them together. Suggestions?

My Sisters Knew I Needed Cheering Up

My sisters Averil and Aurelia were blowing up my iPhone with texts (I think there were 26) and since we're on group chat, I'm in on the action too. I finally got a free moment at work to look at my texts and it's Averil informing us that her beloved footy team, the West Coast Eagles, were doing great blah blah because she likes to pretend that we care. 

Averil is obsessed with footy (Australian football) and we don't get it. I mean, okay, watching hot men run around in little shorts is probably a nice way to spend a few hours. But meh, I'd rather sew. So all that stuff made me yawn, but the last bit of the conversation made me laugh out loud. 

(My texts appear on the right side of the screen... they're extremely profound.)

I realise this post is completely inane. It just amuses me greatly because this is how we always talk and I miss that. My friends have informed us that watching the three of us talk to each other is what it must feel like to go crazy :)

And I'm glad they had this crazy back and forth because I seriously needed cheering up today. I still can't get my car fixed because the police report isn't available yet. And to top things off, my car's dead because I stupidly left my lights on when I got to work this morning. Before you think I'm completely useless, it's because I can't use my driver's door. When I left through the passenger door, the bell didn't ding for me to shut off my lights. Okay, so that's pretty stupid but having to go through your passenger door would make anyone irritated and forget their lights. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Wishing I still lived in the city and could just hop on a train. Cars are really not worth the hassle :/

And if someone can tell me what the point of this post was, you know where to reach me. Thanks.

The Wife Is Always Right

We were driving along the other day...

Hubs: "You have pretty big eyes. For an Asian."
Me: "Why do you have to quantify it?!"

And then I realised I said 'quantify' instead of 'qualify' so I sat and grinned at him hoping he wouldn't catch my booboo.

Hubs: "Umm, you mean qualify? Cos, you know, otherwise it'd be like me telling you that you have 19 eyes."
Me: "Did you not see me grinning? I know I said the wrong word!"
Hubs: "I'm too smart not to catch that!"
Me: *Muttering to myself* "Yeah... smart ASS."

Geese On The Brain

I've been teaching the Sparkling Cider quilt, which has flying geese in it, so I've had geese on the brain hehe And after seeing the gorgeous flying geese mini quilt on Purl Bee I just had to start a flying geese quilt.

Celebrating The 4th Our Way

Happy 4th of July to all who celebrate! Looks like a beautiful day outside so I hope everyone's chilling by the pool or at the beach. Me? I'm staying indoors where nature can't get to me.

So anyway, without even trying to be ironic, we decided to go full-on Singaporean this 4th of July weekend.

For dinner last night, we had laksa. It's pretty spicy by American standards... the fumes alone would singe eyebrows.

I couldn't stop laughing because the hubs kept having to mop the sweat off his face while exclaiming, "Woooooo this is so hot!". LOL! But it was one of his favourite dishes when he visited Singapore, and he even finished off my bowl. Although my bowl was spicier than his because I dumped most of that chilli paste in there. HEEHEE! What can I say... I like it HOT!

And last week, my dad Fedex'd a box of bak kwa over from Singapore.

It's a barbecued sweet meat, kind of like jerky but waaaay yummier. In my humble opinion, anyway :)

(Please don't send me angry letters. I'm only little and I bruise easily.)

It's insanely good, but there's only eight slices in there so we have to pace ourselves. Dad said he'd send more if I wanted, but I think my waistline doth protest.

There's leftover laksa which we're having for dinner again tonight. I'd better go get a couple gallons of milk and a towel ready for the hubs... hehehe!